Human error halts IIIT recruitment

The faculty recruitment of three IIITs has come to a grinding halt following a complaint- said to be by a former minister- who alleged that some irregularities have taken place. As many as 85 people, who were given offer letters, are now in a state of uncertainty. The recruitment was stopped at the eleventh hour as C Damodara Rajanarasimha, Deputy Chief Minister and Minister for Higher Education ordered for a high-level probe.

Following his instructions, the Department of Higher Education has asked the Vice Chancellor of RGUKT- the governing body of three IIITs at Basara, Idupulapaya and Nuziveedu- not to go ahead with the recruitment process until further orders.

There are primarily two issues. One is the allegation of not following the reservation system and another one that same pay scale and benefits for different levels of posts viz Assistant Professor and Lecturer.

The RGUKT has taken up the recruitment process several months back after getting due permission from the government. As many as 438 posts were to be filled up for both engineering and non-engineering wings. The faculty positions for engineering were taken up first but a mistake in the GO added to the confusion. In engineering section, there will be no post which is called as ‘lecturer’ and all the lower level faculty is addressed as ‘Assistant Professor’. But the GO, by mistake reportedly mentioned as lecturer. The pay-scale of lecturer and Assistant professor was mentioned as same.

“It was a small human error and we brought the same to the notice of Higher Education Department. But it was not rectified. We clubbed both and issued the notification which has sparked objections. The complainant stated that without getting a corrigendum from the government on the lecturer issue, it is wrong to take up recruitment” explained Prof RV Raj Kumar, Vice Chancellor of the RGUKT.

“The second allegation of not following the reservation policy is totally untrue. The reservation roster that we have followed was vetted by both the Social Welfare Department and BC Welfare Department and they found no deviations. So, by all means, both the allegations were untenable. I wonder why the complainant chose to raise this issue now at the end of the process- keeping mum at the time of issuance of notification” Raj Kumar told The Hans India. We have already answered to the some of the queries of Higher Education department and I am hopeful that it would give us go ahead soon, he added.